Federal Judges Dismisses Lawsuit to Hold Armslist Liable for 2016 Shooting

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:27 pm

A federal judge has dismissed a former Boston police officer’s lawsuit attempting to hold Armslist.com liable for gunshot injuries he sustained in the line of duty.

Former Boston Police Officer Kurt Stokinger was injured by gunfire during a Jan. 8, 2016 traffic stop. Suspect Grant Headley faced charges for attacking Stokinger with a firearm and unlawfully possessing firearms. A jury ultimately cleared Headley of the firearm assault charges but found him guilty of the firearm possession charges.

Stokinger first began pursuing civil litigation in 2018, to hold Armslist—an online platform for peer-to-peer firearms transfers—for enabling the firearms transfers that put Headley in possession of a firearm during his 2016 encounter with Stokinger. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control legal advocacy group, supported Stokinger in his litigation.

U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro dismissed Stokinger’s lawsuit on Monday, July 15.

Headley came into possession of a .40 caliber Glock Model 27 after a series of transfers that began on Armslist. The court record states a man named Derek McNamara used Armslist in 2015 to sell a handgun to a New Hampshire woman named Sara Johnson. According to the court records, McNamara attested that he had verified Johnson had a valid pistol permit at the time he sold her the gun.

Upon obtaining the firearm from McNamara off of Armslist, Johnson then sold it to Headley.

Stockinger had argued that Armslist was liable because it designed its website in such a way as to encourage illegal gun sales. In particular, his team argued that the filtering features on the website allow users to filter for states that do not require a background check for private firearms transfers. Federal law stipulates that a background check is not required in a private transfer between two individuals in the same state.

While some states have passed laws requiring background checks for all firearms transfers, most states, including New Hampshire, have not.

Stokinger contended filtering features that enable Armslist users to select “private sales” and filter for searches within their own states, are part of a pattern of the website enabling firearms sales to unlawful users. The judge rejected these arguments in his Monday decision.

“The plaintiffs read too much into Armslist’s inclusion of New Hampshire in its 50-state filtering feature,” Barbadoro wrote. “The decision to include New Hampshire alongside the other 49 states indicates that Armslist is amenable to serving the New Hampshire market, but it does not indicate that Armslist specifically targeted New Hampshire.”

Barbadoro further rejected Stokinger’s case on jurisdictional grounds. The judge concluded the plaintiff didn’t properly identify the discovery he sought or explain how the materials could support a jurisdictional claim to continue the lawsuit.